The question mark after the iPhone

The big hoo-haa over the iPhone at the moment is whether Apple will ever release it! I think most of us who already own an iPod wouldn’t mind splashing out big bucks for an Apple branded phone that combines all of the current communication capabilities that exist on mobile phones today, wrapped up in a package that mirrors the same qualities that can be found in the iPod of today.

Mobile phones are well known for being notoriously badly designed when it comes to software. It’s usually problems with the functionality, reliability or menu layouts. The big three, Nokia, Sony Ericsson and Motorola have all been fantastic at coming up with desirable phones but when it comes to the underlying software that runs most of these handsets, the engineers often overlook it.

For Apple to come out with the iPhone would almost be the same as Ian Fleming discovering Penicillin. Well, perhaps I’m overplaying it a little bit, but it would be magnificent feat of engineering.

Why would it be, you ask? Well for most people who think of the iPhone, they probably think of the Motorola Rokr that runs iTunes and has that ridiculous 100-song cap. Everyone believes that this was Apple testing the waters to see whether such a device could exist. However, it seemed a strange move since it appears that Apple didn’t have any involvement in the design, which was left up to Motorola. It was a half-hearted attempt at creating a music phone. It was a flop.

So what would the iPhone be if it were ever let out in the wild? What are the design objectives that Apple would have to tackle in order for the product to be approved by Steve Jobs? Well let’s take a look at these issues and how hard it would be to overcome them.

The design is either going to be a spin of from the iPod family or it’s going to be some kind of wildly new design that Jonathan Ive has been cooking up. Perhaps that’s why we’ve seen little change in the Apple line up recently with the iMac, MacBook Pro and Mac Pro receiving only minor if any cosmetic updates from their pervious models?

I can just imagine Ive locked up in Cupertino HQ for months on end whilst working on coming up with a design that tops the simplistic design of even the iPod. But seriously, the design would have to be super sleek to match the rest of the mobile phone industry. When you’ve got desirable and competent competitors such as Nokia, Sony Ericsson and Motorola constantly churning out model after model in different colours, different styles, special Dolce and Gabbana models, plus the fact they all sell well.

Design wise, I think it’s going to be relatively easy for the Apple squad to come up with something really fantastic in that department. My guess is that it’s going to be iPod-ish in design and they’ll milk that to death when it launches because they know well enough that the thing is going to sell and they’ll sell more of these than they will iPods. It could potentially be the most popular product they ever release in a market that topped 800 million handsets worldwide in 2005, Nokia believes their will be 3 billion mobile phone users by 2008 and analysts estimate 1 billion phones sold per year by 2009. If Apple could get in to even a small part of that huge pie then the whole iPod, iTunes, iLife message will be even more embedded in our minds.

One of the major crippling factors of the iPod of today, even with the updated Nano and its Lithium Polymer battery, is it possible for Apple to implement phone functionality in to a device that already struggles to play music for extended periods of time? Current mobile phones on the market such as the Nokia N91 which features an 8GB hard drive built in has the capacity to output up to 12.5 hours of music. These ‘lab condition’ figures are rarely achievable in the real world and that will definitely be the case if you’re going to be using this as a phone as well. I think if we halved playback time, a 6 hour playback time is perhaps more credible? It’s interesting to note that after reading various reviews that rarely mention anything about real world battery usage.

Recent rumours from super secret sources reckon that the iPhone will contain two batteries. That to me sounds like the best solution to the battery problem, or why not just have one long life battery instead? Wouldn’t that be the same thing and make more sense?

If there were going to be two batteries, lets just say my phone battery went flat, but my mp3 player battery had some juice in it. Wouldn’t it be crazy if you couldn’t use that battery to make a phone call because it’s dedicated for the mp3 portion only? I’m not so sure the twin battery idea is such a good one. A single long life battery would make more sense, after all, you’re either going to be making a phone call or not, or listening to music or not. Rarely would you be doing both at the same time, so having a twin battery strikes me as a bit odd to be honest. Not only that, if this iPhone is going to be super tiny then in what physics-defying way are they going to implement two batteries?

That is just about all we know about the iPhone at the moment. January is coming closer and just like the rest of the Mac community, we’re all eager to find out what January MacWorld will unsettle this Universe with. Will it be the impossible iPhone? Lets hope it is, so we can put an end to this long time rumour and to satisfy the worlds hunger for such a device to change the way we communicate.

If this article didn’t satisfy your thirst for iPhone knowledge, check out some of these links:

http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=2283

http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=2285

http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=2280

http://www.macrumors.com/pages/2006/09/20060913215342.shtml